Fizz Buzz: I don't want to think this much!

The frustration with Fizz Buzz reveals itself in two steps.  First there's figuring out what the hell to do, a process even more annoying for an anti-directions man like myself.

I mean, when you first launch the app you are presented with the number "1," a ticking timer, and two buttons labeled "fizz" and "buzz."  Clicking the buttons either makes the timer reset and move to "2" or gives you a "too bad" dialogue box that ends the "game."

If you're like me, your first instinct is not to go check the directions but instead to keep pushing random buttons and drive yourself mad.

When you do finally check the directions, though, the second wave of frustration begins.

First off, the "rules" tab is buried in a menu within a menu.  A user must click a tiny info button and then select rules just to find out what this game is all about.  And then it's revealed that the whole thing is one big math problem.

You select "fizz", "buzz," both, or the number itself depending on if the number in the middle is divisible by 5, 7, both, or neither.  The numbers count up from one, and your goal is to count as high as you can without screwing up.

It gets hard pretty fast.

In addition, there is an advanced mode that is even more complicated.  Let's not get into that.

When you lose, you get a simple dialogue box.  Want to save your progress for later?  TOO BAD!  There is no option, although you can change the timer and the "start number," as well as which numbers you are dividing by.

This one gives me flashbacks to third grade math flash cards, and I don't really like it--especially considering the app is advertised as a game and not an educational tool.  If you're trying to learn your simple division, this one might be worthwhile.  But if you've got an iPhone, you have a calculator on you all the time, so what's the point, right?

You can buy Fizz Buzz for $0.99 HERE.

Comments

[John Tree]

Just so you'll know, this is sometimes played as a drinking game (with the standard but never-believed disclaimer: I've never played this as a drinking game). So you could lump this in with the other iPhone drinking game-enabling apps.

[buzzyteam]

thanks for your review, your comments are very good and accurate regarding our appli. It was created months ago, and as said can be seen a a math game.
It was our first attempt for Iphone dev, since we are about to finish a new app, must more advanced: a DJ music app for everybody knowing or not music basics. If you want you can send us a mail and we can send you a promo code to review it as soon as it will be available.
Thanks
The buzzyteam

[buzzyteam]

FIZZBUZZ will become FREE in few days, your remarks have been taken into account ...

[buzzyteam]

We've updated FizzBuzz so that the 'you lost' message is now more verbose and precise on why that was so. As you mentioned, it does make it a bit more 'usable'
We took some of your comments on usability at heart in our next app, easymix (a dj / mixing app), and tried to make both the help & the main UI easily accessible. Goal was that anybody could pick it up and start doing music in less than 30 secondes. We think it worked out ok, but any comment's appreciated :)